ProCreate, Don't Reproduce! Propulsive Energy Diffusion for Creative GenerationJack Lu, Ryan Teehan, Mengye Ren
In this paper, we propose ProCreate, a simple and easy-to-implement method to improve sample diversity and creativity of diffusion-based image generative models and to prevent training data reproduction. ProCreate operates on a set of reference images and actively propels the generated image embedding away from the reference embeddings during the generation process. We propose FSCG-8 (Few-Shot Creative Generation 8), a few-shot creative generation dataset on eight different categories -- encompassing different concepts, styles, and settings -- in which ProCreate achieves the highest sample diversity and fidelity. Furthermore, we show that ProCreate is effective at preventing replicating training data in a large-scale evaluation using training text prompts. Code and FSCG-8 are available at https://github.com/Agentic-Learning-AI-Lab/procreate-diffusion-public. The project page is available at https://procreate-diffusion.github.io.
12.0CLDec 2, 2025
When Does Verification Pay Off? A Closer Look at LLMs as Solution VerifiersJack Lu, Ryan Teehan, Jinran Jin et al.
Large language models (LLMs) can act as both problem solvers and solution verifiers, with verifiers improving solver performance by selecting high-quality answers from a pool of candidates. However, prior studies of solver-verifier interactions have been limited, focusing mainly on self-verification and rarely examining how verifiers judge outputs from models in their own or in another model family. Modern LLMs also undergo extensive post-training, but its effect on verification remains unclear. We present a systematic study across 37 models spanning multiple families, sizes, and base vs. post-trained variants, evaluated on 9 benchmarks covering logical reasoning, structured puzzles, symbolic computation, mathematics, commonsense, factual recall, and domain knowledge. We compare self-verification with verification within the same family and across different families. To support this, we introduce and empirically validate verifier gain, a metric that predicts the performance improvements from test-time verifier-based rejection sampling. We analyze how metrics like verifier gain and false positive rate scale with model size and post-training, and characterize differences in dataset verifiability. Our findings show that cross-family verification is especially effective; post-training reduces self-improvement but strengthens cross-family improvement; and mathematical and logical tasks exhibit the highest inherent verifiability.